Designed to match house. Accent lights. Lovin’ my oven!

Hey Rado, Just completed the MTO and finished it to match my house that I built 3 years ago! Your design is outstanding and works like a dream!

Have had many great pizza parties with it and bake lots of bread the next day. Even slow cooked a pork rear, terrific! It took 6 months of evening and weekends and loved working on it every minute, the funnest project I’ve ever done!

My wife calls the oven my “mistress” cause she says I’m always with her or thinking about her!

Thanks for your very informative web site and all the detailed photos on the CD. Attached are the pics of my oven.

I got a little carried away and added a front roof, outlets, accent lighting and wiring for a future sound system! Great fun building this, kinda sad it’s over! Now I get to work on my culinary skills, and eat like a king!

See the pic of cheese bread I made today if you want to add it to the other pics I sent you the other day.

Steve, Morgantown, WV, USA

Respond to the Designed to match house. Accent lights. Lovin’ my oven! article:

Wow it looks great and trust me I know how you feel. Its the last thing or taught as I lay in bed before I go to sleep. I have started but got only half way since I go overseas every summer. I will and cannot wait till spring to continue. Enjoy and looks like you have the land to do that also. Bart.

Looking at it for the second time if you don’t mind a suggestion. Two white pillars at the front supporting the roof, even though it doesn’t need it, it would look great. Just as suggestion and not to make any corrections. Happy baking and the bread looks great. Bart.

Thanks for the compliment and suggestion Bart. Funny you mention columns in the front. I have struggled with that notion, but decided that although they would look good, I’m afraid they would be more of an obstacle. I could see getting mad at them everytime I bump into them with the long pizza peel handles. Steve

I also think the pillars could be in a way if they were put in there. Unless the roof extends much further out there’s no need for pillars. Steve, the oven is well blended in with your house. Looks really fabulous. I wish ours will be this nice, will have to be!

You may have a point and at the end you tie the horse where the owner wants it. It all depends on the distance from the mouth of the oven to the front corners of the roof. The main thing is that you enjoy and it certainly looks like you are. I love you pot lights which I am going to also put in mine. Thanks for the idea. Bart.

Yes Fred, I love good bread too! My mother was always baking bread when I was a boy. My favorite back then was her cheddar cheese bread! This past weekend I picked up the ingredients to make sourdough bread, and I’m going to make the starter tomorrow night for breads this weekend coming. I can’t praise the design of this oven enough, Rado knows what he’s doing! With the last 230 deg. of heat left in the oven yesterday, I put in a Pork shoulder for 9 hours. So good! Happy Baking, Steve

I have a few questions for you appreciate it if you can help me! How do you build the flue? How come the chimney is built in front of fireplace? How do you seal it off to hold heat in chamber? A friend is building a wood burning brick oven to bake bread and would appreciate your help. Thank you

Hello Sandy,
The flue can be made many different ways, I chose to use standard 12″ x 8″ chimney blocks with clay liners, but it could be built up using bricks also. The front chimney is typical in this style of oven. The reason is that you only want one opening so the heat remains in the oven. If the chimney was in the back the cross-draft would pull too much cool air in and make it hard to keep warm. I use a 2″ thick cherry door soaked in water to cover the opening, when baking breads, and other things when temperatures are below 500 deg. I would highly suggest that you purchase the plans from Rado and study his website. This kind of project requires a lot of time to complete, so please follow a plan so that you can enjoy years of cooking with a properly built oven!
Steve

Other then cooking efficiency I think an oven of this sort would just be a really cool addition to any home back yard or large enough kitchen area. Not only useful but also something to show off and talk about. Steve you built yours really well congratulations. I am thinking of putting some 12V LED lights also inside to illuminate the working area instead of running around with a hand held torch light when baking at night.

I would like to underline your advice about purchasing the plans from Rado. You are more than right when you say that it requires a lot of time.

I keep looking over the hundreds of Rado picture and each time I notice something different. It has become my pastime and enjoying every minute of it. Lots of work with great rewards and satisfaction. All this without ever laying a brick in my life. Enjoy

Tim,
Thanks for the compliment! It has been a fun project, and a great conversation piece too! My wife and I are both foodies, so this oven is the ultimate foodie tool to have! You are on track about the lighting! If I was building this again I would embed some sort of lighting to illuminate the oven floor! Good luck with your project!
Steve

You guys are going to drive me crazy and convince me to finish building this oven in the middle of winter. I am at the point where have completed the hearth slab and the layed bricks to that level. My next step is the firebricks which as planned would be done in early spring. I keep sticking my nose in this website and always looking for surprises. Thanks for the idea of putting lights inside. What kind of lighting would you put in that the heat would not effect it?

Bart, I would mount a metal box and metal conduit behind the front arch of the oven. I would either mount a light on the box or a goose neck style light on the box to shed light inside the oven. The area behind the front arch is much cooler due to the fresh air draft rising up the chimney. I think that would be a safe place. I feel your pain about wanting to finish the job regardless of the weaher, my wife thought I was obsessed! I saw one of the posts where a guy built a makeshift tent around it, so go for it! Steve

Thank Steve: probably the goose neck idea is the better choice since I don’t know of the amount of heat. Now a question on using the oven. Did you find it easy to cook in it? Do you have previous experiences on cooking with the woodburning oven? Like I have notice the bread and the gold color it look great. I am afraid that I am going to burn a few pizzas before I get it right.
Enjoy you baking it must be fun. Bart.

Bart, I have found the oven easy to cook in. The bread in the picture is cheese bread, and right before it is put in the oven, it is brushed with whisked egg whites to give it that delicious golden finish! Most breads come out golden brown anyway but the egg whites make it really pop! I just baked my wifes potato bread rolls for Thanksgiving and they looked fantastic too. The oven was reading about 300 degrees. I have found that the bread recipes call for conventional ovens to be around 400 degrees +/- 25 degrees, but my experience has been that 325-350 is best. Even at the lower temps the bread is done 10 to 20 minutes sooner than the recipe calls for with great results. There must be greater heat transfer to the bread since the heat is coming equally from all around, unlike a conventional oven with the heat source only emmiting from the bottom. What you learn very quickly when making pizzas is to never turn you back on them, baking at 800 degrees makes this happen fast. I did not have any experience with wood fired ovens prior to this. It’s always fun to learn new things so don’t be afraid of mistakes! It’s all part of the learning curve, enjoy! Steve

Thanks for the compliment Julie! The size of the oven is pretty much as per Rado’s plans. The width is just shy of 6′ and length just shy of 8′. The roof is 12′ long and has a 9/12 pitch. The plans can be easily scaled larger or smaller to suit your needs. I Baked Ciabata, cheese and old-fashioned bread in it yesterday! No foodie should be without a wood fired oven! Steve